San Francisco

Towards Carfree: Aboard a Portland-bound train

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Steve Jones reports from the Towards Carfree Cities conference.

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Our crew includes (from left) Jon Winston, Nancy Bodkin, Jason Henderson, and Brian Smith.

“We’ve got a runner,” the train conductor said over the PA system as we pulled out of Eugene, Oregon for the final leg of our overnight train from Oakland to Portland. Someone seeking good coffee had missed the train and was fruitlessly trying to catch up to us.

I was with a large contingent of Bay Area transportation policy experts, activists and thinkers – all bound for the Towards Carfree Cities conference — and we laughed. Then we laughed harder once we realized that Jason Henderson, a geography professor at San Francisco State, was no longer with us. Shit, we chortled, Jason didn’t make the train.

Co-conductor Justin Clark, who is just 22 but has been working for Amtrak for two years, walked by the aisle so I asked him what happened. “He decided to go to the coffee stand a block and a half up the street. I saw him running with the coffee in his hand,” Clark told me. He radioed conductor Archie Club, “and he said it was too late.” Clark said he might have stopped the train if it was his call, but it wasn’t.

“We don’t do it for fun,” Clark, whose tongue was pierced, said of leaving passengers behind and watching them run for the train. In fact, Clark felt a little bad as he stood in the doorway, watching the passenger try to stop the train: “I had to look away. I didn’t want him to see that I saw him.”

The trip had been a smooth one so far, leaving the Bay Area only a few minutes late, a sharp contrast to Amtrak’s reputation for long delayed trains, something activist Brian Smith connected to our runner: “That’s Amtrak’s new commitment to on-time efficiency.”

Jason walked up part way through my interview, so our crew was intact after all, soon to arrive for a big week in Portland.

Same-sex equality: From dongs to ding-dong-dings

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OK, so this is it. This is the day I’m finally equal. No longer a “second class citizen” — in California at least, the third biggest state with the largest population in the good ol’ US of Gay. Today at 5pm, two precious octagenarian lesbians will legally tie the knot at San Francisco City Hall, and tomorrow I’ll have access to the last state right denied to me on the basis of which side I butter my queer toast. Weird.

Will I suddenly walk taller? Will my shoulders expand and my chest inflate? Will I finally fall prey to all that Sex and the City hoo-ha and watch my moods swing from Blahnik pump to Wang gown with every hysterical cosmo and Cosmo I down? Or will I become the stereotypical male role model — unable to commit to an ice cream flavor or credit card company, let alone matrimony.

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Gurl, we already had Sex and the City in the ’40s. From www.queermusicheritage.us

Maybe worse, as someone whose queer identity was partly formed by saying “who cares” to marriage, because there’s more pressing problems confronting the community — now that that stance is officially a personal rather than a political statement, what will happen to my politics? “Who cares.”

Mostly, and oddly, though, I found myself waking up this morning itching for a fight.

From dongs to ding-dong-dings

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OK, so this is it. This is the day I’m finally equal. No longer a “second class citizen” — in California at least, the third biggest state with the largest population in the good ol’ US of Gay. Today at 5pm, two precious octagenarian lesbians will legally tie the knot at San Francisco City Hall, and tomorrow I’ll have access to the last state right denied to me on the basis of which side I butter my queer toast. Weird.

Will I suddenly walk taller? Will my shoulders expand and my chest inflate? Will I finally fall prey to all that Sex and the City hoo-ha and watch my moods swing from Blahnik pump to Wang gown with every hysterical cosmo and Cosmo I down? Or will I become the stereotypical male role model — unable to commit to an ice cream flavor or credit card company, let alone matrimony.

spotqu~1a.jpg
Gurl, we already had Sex and the City in the ’40s. From www.queermusicheritage.us

Maybe worse, as someone whose queer identity was partly formed by saying “who cares” to marriage, because there’s more pressing problems confronting the community — now that that stance is officially a personal rather than a political statement, what will happen to my politics? “Who cares.”

Mostly, and oddly, though, I found myself waking up this morning itching for a fight.

Lennar files for bankruptcy at Mare Island

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Just as folks in San Francisco are beginning to wonder if Lennar is planning to mothball the Hunters Point Shipyard in face of a $25 million funding gap (reportedly related to lowered land prices), comes word that folks in Vallejo are beginning to wonder what Lennar Mare Island’s June 8 bankruptcy will means for their city’s already strained finances.

On Sunday June 8, Lennar Mare Island LLC, which has been involved in redeveloping the former naval station at Mare Island for eleven years. petitioned for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, along with its parent company LandSource and 19 other Lennar-related subsidiaries.

The move came several couple of months after LandSource defaulted on a $1.24 billion loan–and five days after the June 3 election, in which Lennar Homes of California spent $5 million to pass Prop. G, which gives it the right to develop luxury condos at Candlestick Point, as well as at Hunters Point Shipyard.

Semi-conscious consumerism: Nike + American Apparel = what, exactly

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By Justin Juul

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I know I’m not supposed to buy Nike shoes because they’re made by starving children in developing countries — unlike Converse, New Balance, and Reebok shoes which are all made by high-paid workers right here in San Francisco — but holy shit has Nike made an awesome sneaker. Their new Free-Everyday line has a super-streamlined look with a custom-colorway option, which is what really sealed the deal for me (mine are all grey with brick-red highlights).

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But that’s not all. They also come with a little microchip you can slide into the sole. The chip pings to a bracelet (or an iPod) so you can monitor your progress. Also, if you’re a nerd, you can personalize the back of your new shoes with a two-word phrase. I was going to get “America Rules” emblazoned on mine, but there was a copyright issue so I chose “Manifest Destiny” instead. * Come on! Starving children are great and all, but really, how could I not buy a pair of these things?

You see, I’m a runner, but until I got my Nikes I was just a casual nighttime runner, a secretive runner if you will. Now, I’m a machine. I’ve already clocked 50 miles on my new kicks and I’ve got my sights set on running the first half of the SF marathon in August. Why the sudden change? Well, it sucks to admit, but I’ve never publicly expressed my love for running because runners are fucking dorks. Have you seen their shoes!? Before the Nike Free-Everyday was released, the only running shoes you could get –good ones, I’m talking about—looked like they’d been designed by colorblind robots from the planet Zorton. This isn’t 1986, guys. This isn’t Back to the Future II. Mismatched neon, totally useless plastic ridges, and air bubbles may have been cool at some point, but this is the nineties, man. I need my kicks to look fresh! And now they do. But compromising my morals wasn’t as easy as I thought it’d be. And soon, other problems began to surface

Bring the Guard home

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Here’s a good idea to further localize the effort to stop the war in Iraq. See how the states of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont are organizing efforts to pressure their state legislatures to stop the deployment of the National Guards, from their state to Iraq, on the orders of President Bush.

“It is clear that the mission that Congress authorized no longer exists. The President has no current or permanent legal authority to keep Guard members in Iraq. The Governor as Commander-in-Chief of the Vermont National Guard should take necessary steps to bring them home.”
~ Rep. Michael Fisher, Vermont State House

Let’s get a movement going in California. Let’s start by asking rep. Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House and our San Francisco representative, up for reelection this fall, if she would support the movement or lead the charge.

For more information go to www.BringtheGuardHome.org

What is carfree?

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Carfree – it’s a word that is not part of the American lexicon. Even breaking the word apart – car free – won’t much help the average automobile-dependent U.S. resident intuit its meaning. If the concept seems foreign, that’s because it is.

The World Carfree Network started in Europe more than 10 years ago to, according to its mission statement, “bring together organizations and individuals dedicated to promoting alternatives to car dependence and automobile-based planning at the international level and working to reduce the human impact on the natural environment while improving the quality of life for all.”

But just as Americans begin to seriously grapple with global warming, high gasoline prices, and hopelessly congested roadways, the carfree concept and its adherents are establishing a beachhead here. The group’s eighth annual conference, Towards Carfree Cities, begins Monday in Portland, Oregon, the first time it’s been in the U.S.

And San Francisco activists are hoping to use the occasion to firmly plant the “carfree” word and concept in the minds of local planners and politicians, a cause the Guardian will help promote with daily coverage from the week-long conference.

Treasure Island welcomes vinyl dildos and tankers of lube

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We honestly thought the Exotic Erotic Ball would be the last event to leave the beleaguered Cow Palace. But sure enough, we’ve just learned that the 28th annual “celebration of flesh, fetish and fantasy,” in fact, won’t be held at the legendary Daly City venue. Instead, organizers have moved it this year to Treasure Island. The ball’s operator says the event simply outgrew Cow Palace, but it may also have been Daly City’s campaign to get rid of the convention center and replace it with a massive development project to include a grocery store, condos and some chain retail outlets.

In announcing the move, Treasure Island’s director of operations, Mirian Saez, tried to get all hip and claim that the all-but-deserted sliver of land out in the middle of the Bay that developers are currently planning to build a small city on has a long history of hosting sordid celebrations of sin. During the 1939 World’s Fair held at Treasure Island, for instance, one of the most popular attractions was a strip show known as Sally Rand’s Nude Ranch where women wore cowboy hats, gun-belts, boots and not a lot else, according to a statement.

So, Treasure Island officials reasoned, why not have the Exotic Erotic Ball there, too? I mean, apparently they’ve been naked and banging each other out there for years anyway. Maybe that’s why Willie Brown had a particular fondness for sending patronage hacks out to Treasure Island’s administrative offices. Okay, that’s totally unfair.

The show’s producer, Howard Mauskopf, said in the statement that he loved Cow Palace, but the island will be a logistical improvement:

“We had big fun at the Cow Palace and threw some of our best parties ever at that site. But, on Treasure Island, we will have greater flexibility, and all the space we could possibly want. Plus, it’s one of San Francisco’s most idyllic and scenic waterside locations with unparalleled panoramic Bay views, and it has its own spicy and salacious past, just like the ball.”

According to the ball’s official history, it began in 1979 when Perry Mann hosted the shindig in his San Francisco penthouse apartment to collect campaign money for a presidential candidate running on the Nudist Party ticket at the time. His slogan? “I have nothing to hide.”

*Image courtesy Breaktaker.com.

Dufty to run for mayor?

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Stephen Seewer, the LGBT chair of the Commonwealth Club, called to tip me off to a big story that the media missed: Sup. Bevan Dufty announced on Monday at the Commonwealth Club that he’s running for mayor of San Francisco! Political watchers have long known this was a possibility, but how did we miss such an important announcement?
So I spoke with Dufty, who told me that he is indeed thinking about it, but far from making it official: “I don’t feel like it was a formal announcement.”
Dufty said Seewer caught him off-guard at the event with a question about whether he plans to run for mayor. Dufty says he answered by talking about the ambitious agenda he intends to pursue over the next two years and, as he tells it to us, he then told the audience, “Hopefully, I’ll look like a strong candidate for mayor.”
OK, maybe that’s not quite an official declaration, but it’s no secret that Dufty has his eye on the job. Others who seems to be setting themselves up for a run and have made similar statements of interest include Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, City Attorney Dennis Herrera, Assessor-Recorder Phil Ting, Sup. Aaron Peskin, and District Attorney Kamala Harris (provided she doesn’t get tapped by President Barack Obama to be attorney general). And I wouldn’t be surprised if Senator Carole Migden takes a step back after losing reelection, licks her wounds, and returns to the fray as a mayoral candidate.

A vote for public power in November

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EDITORIAL Working with environmentalist cover, Mayor Gavin Newsom and Pacific Gas and Electric Co. have moved aggressively to derail a move that would have given the city control over some local power generation. Instead, the mayor is now pushing to keep Mirant Corp. running the one electricity plant that still operates within city limits.

The politics of the deal are complicated, but the driving force is clear: PG&E didn’t want the city moving even a small step toward public power, and as usual, the big utility is getting its way.

The power plant deal proves exactly why Supervisors Ross Mirkarimi and Aaron Peskin should move forward with a November charter amendment for public power.

As Amanda Witherell reports, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission has been trying for years now to win approval for three city-owned combustion turbines that would generate electric power at a plant at the foot of Potrero Hill. The idea: the turbines, also known as "peakers," would generate enough power during peak-use periods to convince the state to shut down the dirtier Mirant Plant.

Many environmentalists opposed the proposal, saying that the city shouldn’t be building any new fossil-fuel plants. That’s a legitimate argument. But California’s Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO), the agency that controls the electric grid, insisted that renewable energy alone wouldn’t provide enough reliable power for San Francisco, and said the only way to shut down Mirant was to put in the peakers.

PG&E has been trying for months to derail the peakers — not, of course, out of any concern for the environment, but because the city would own the power plants. At first Newsom stuck by his PUC — but after seven PG&E lobbyists came into his office and gave him the facts of life (see "PG&E offers Newsom a blank check" at sfbg.com), he backed down. And now, after meeting with the CEOs of PG&E and Mirant, Newsom is pushing the worst possible alternative: he wants to retrofit the Mirant plant and let the private company operate its own peakers.

Same fossil fuel plants in the Bayview. Same type of air pollution. And the facility would be owned by a private company.

The supervisors need to reject this proposal with extreme prejudice — and the environmentalists who fought the city peakers ought to be just as loud in their opposition to Mirant’s retrofit.

The good news is that this ridiculous Newsom–PG&E deal ought to put the focus at City Hall back on public power, because that’s the only way to create a really green power profile in San Francisco.

Matthew Wald, who has coved energy policy for decades, wrote an interesting piece in the New York Times June 8 discussing why no private company wants to invest money in technology that would reduce carbon emissions from power plants. "Cutting carbon dioxide emissions is a fine idea, and a lot of companies would be proud to do it," Wald wrote. "But they would prefer to be second, if not third or fourth."

That’s because no private utility wants to take the risks and try something new that another company could then copy. In economic terms, carbon reduction is a public good — it’s something that benefits everyone, and nobody has the exclusive right to make money off of it. Private companies have been notoriously bad at investing in public goods.

But that’s not how public power agencies work. A San Francisco power agency would have every motivation to develop and use technology that saves consumers money or protects the environment. There’s no issue of profits to protect; in fact, one of the mandates of a city agency should be reducing carbon emissions and promoting renewable energy.

We have always been sympathetic to the concerns that the city-owned peakers would emit greenhouse gases. But if the city owned the plants, the city could shut them down anytime, whenever enough renewables were available. Mirant won’t shut down anything that is bringing in cash.

Mirkarimi and Peskin are working on the details of a public power measure, but the outlines ought to be clear: it should mandate that the SFPUC create and implement a plan to put the city in the retail power business, in compliance with the letter and spirit of the Raker Act — and get rid of PG&E and Mirant. The supervisors should put that on the November ballot.

Is Lennar mothballing Hunters Point Shipyard?

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The question may seem strange to voters who just gave Lennar the green light to redevelop the Shipyard and Candlestick Point by voting Yes on Proposition G.

But it sure looks like there’s a major financial problem at Lennar’s construction site on Parcel A of the Shipyard ( the first piece of land on the former naval base to be developed), judging from documents obtained from the City.

“Without the requested $25,021,079 Infill grant allocation, our infrastructure project faces a serious risk of being mothballed,” wrote Stephen Maduli-Williams, Deputy Executive Director of Community and Economic Development for the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, on May 23, 2008. “The project would face increased costs from work stoppage, remobilization efforts and substantial change orders.”

Maduli-Williams was writing to Wanda Yepez, a grant program manager at the California Department of Housing and Community Development, to appeal a grant application that Yepez determined as ineligible a week earlier, on May 16, 2008.

In his May 23 appeal, Maduli Williams stated that, “In addition to setting national benchmarks in the percentage (in terms of total units developed) and affordability level of housing units created, this project sets benchmarks with its level of developer commitment/investment as well as other community benefits (Legacy Fund).”

Althousing odyssey

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Marianne Moore takes you on a guided tour through the often confusing, always thrilling world of Bay Area alternative housing

We all know San Francisco housing is murder, with median rent for a one-bedroom apartment going for nearly $2200. So when I came home from college for my sweet but unpaid SF Bay Guardian internship, I knew I would have to be resourceful. I was prepared to live anywhere and do (almost) anything, as long as it was cheap. If you’re a local reading this via free wireless in your rent-controlled apartment (enjoy it while it lasts!), you may find this information irrelevant and stressful; or maybe you’ve been through it all. But if, like me, you can visit the beautiful Bay only for too-short summers, or you’re passing through or in transition, read on.

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Home sweet hostel? Not if you’re local.

The USA hostel on Post, like most hostels, will sometimes let you work a certain number of hours per week in exchange for a free bed. You have to work at least 24 hours and the nightly rate is $25 for paying guests, so it comes out to about $7.50 an hour, well below minimum wage in San Francisco. When I tried to arrange things over the phone from New York, I was told by the bored-sounding receptionist that I would just have to show up for a couple nights so they could “see if they liked me.” That made me a little nervous, but since I’m not totally unlikable I still thought it was worth a try. When I checked in and presented my California driver’s license, I was told that I wouldn’t be allowed to stay unless I could show an out-of-state ID. Apparently the company has a policy against boarding California residents, a policy specifically designed (it seems to me) to keep out homeless people. This isn’t typical for hostels; places I’ve stayed in New York City are regularly used as stopgaps by people between apartments. I couldn’t help but think that the hostel shuts out native Californians to protect their guests (mostly drunk-ass Eurotrash on holiday) from the realities of life in SF, presenting a tourist experience in line with trips to Ghiradelli Square and Pier 39.That, plus the popularity contest application process, had me heading straight for the nearest internet café and the dizzying wilderness of options that is Craig’s List .

Politics and sausage

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Last night, I was reminded of the old joke that people who like sausage and appreciate politics shouldn’t watch either one being made.
Less than a week after winning a majority of the seats on the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee, the progressive-minded “Hope Slate” candidates (all of which were endorsed by the Guardian) descended into bitter infighting over who to back for the powerful chair of the DCCC.
The acrimony began when Board of Supervisors president Aaron Peskin, whose 23,049 DCCC votes was second only to David Campos (whose run for supervisor this fall would conflict with running the DCCC), resisted calls to run for the chair, much to the consternation of progressive stalwarts such as Chris Daly and Robert Haaland.
Some Hope Slate candidates, such as Laura Spanjian, were apparently supporting a play by Assembly member turned Senator-to-be Mark Leno to have moderate Scott Wiener continue as the DCCC chair, despite the fact that he wasn’t part of the winning slate and he finished in 10th place in the DCCC District 13 race.
And for awhile there, Peskin seemed to be going along the Leno’s play, arguing that progressives should adopt a conciliatory posture. So the candidates gathered together last night at the 500 Club to hash out their differences, and I had a front row seat for a discussion that turned nasty – with Daly shouting at Peskin and Spanjian and then storming out of the room.
But today, as cooler heads prevailed, Peskin has decided to run, telling me, “Yes, it is true, I am running.”

Local Artist of the Week: Tara Tucker

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LOCAL ARTIST Tara Tucker
TITLE Double Trouble
THE STORY “My work is about natural history and human psychology. All the animals in Double Trouble are from Africa. The secretary bird eats snakes. The snake in Double Trouble is a green mamba, a really dangerous part of the cobra family. The baboon is ‘me,’ and I’m hanging with my friend that is a bit of a user, but eats snakes.”
BIO Tara Tucker lives in Berkeley and teaches at Creative Growth in Oakland. She has an MFA in sculpture from California College of the Arts and is represented by Rena Bransten Gallery, where she had a solo show in 2007.
SHOW “Resisting Dominion: Nature and New Political Narratives,” Thurs/12 through August 16. Wed.–Sat., noon–5 p.m. Opening reception: Thurs/12, 6–8 p.m. San Francisco Arts Commission Art Gallery, 401 Van Ness, SF. (415) 554-6080. www.sfacgallery.org
WEB SITE www.taratucker.blogspot.com

Stunning doublespeak on electricity rates

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While PG&E is requesting the California Public Utilities Commission allow them a 6.5 percent electricity rate hike over the next six months, ostensibly to cover skyrocketing natural gas prices, they’re telling local citizens they’re expecting prices to drop.

In Marin County, our neighbors to the north have been listening to PG&E lobbyists criticize their county’s plan to provide 100 percent renewable energy to residents through Community Choice Aggregation. Their CCA plan, called Marin Clean Energy, will offer customers 25 percent renewable energy by 2009 twice what PG&E offers, and for the same rate. Customers who want to pay a little more can go 100 percent renewable right out of the gate. Ultimately, they’ll scale the 25 up to 51 percent by 2013, and 100 percent thereafter.

Marin argues that 100 percent renewable energy is a more fiscally responsible way to go – precisely because natural gas prices are volatile and will continue to rise. But PG&E says Marin’s plan is too risky and too costly. You can read PG&E’s critique of the plan, and Marin’s apt rebuttal, here.

But recent testimony from Dawn Weisz, MCE’s planner, sums it up pretty succinctly.

“Their [PG&E’s] main criticism is that we won’t be able to achieve the cost benefits,” Weisz told a May 23, 2008 meeting of San Francisco’s Local Agency Formation Commission, who had invited her to brief them on their CCA’s progress. Weisz said they had an independent third party analyze the CCA plan and PG&E’s critique.

The analyst found a key flaw in PG&E’s logic. “They’re using a gas forecast that assumes gas will be 14 percent cheaper in 12 years,” Weisz said.

At this, the entire LAFCO board broke out in laughter. Any sane person knows that isn’t going to happen. As Weisz pointed out, natural gas prices rose an average of 30 percent over the last five years, and as the San Francisco Chronicle reported today, they’re 63 percent higher than they were a year ago. Natural gas is a fossil fuel just like crude oil, and speculators are having their day with it, too.

But PG&E is using their estimate to contend their prices will be cheaper than MCE’s over the long run, so you best not switch services. And as we can see from the awkwardly placed chart to the left, PG&E”s rates have only and ever gone up.

As PG&E continues to cling to their fossil fuel infrastructure, and combats communities who attempt to prove viable, renewable alternatives are possible, we should expect to see PG&E pleading at the CPUC for more and more rate hikes.

Scottish SF

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By Phil Eil

San Francisco may be a long way from Scotland, but the fingerprints of our kilt-wearing friends are all over the Bay Area. Between John Muir (of Muir Woods), and “Uncle John” Mclaren, the Golden Gate Park superintendent who vowed, “There will be no ‘Keep Off the Grass’ signs,” Scotsmen have San Francisco-area parks covered. And then there are the seven San Francisco public libraries—including my local branch in the Mission — financed by the Scottish-born steel baron Andrew Carnegie. If that’s not enough, consider each Scottish Terrier in Bernal Heights Park, all the Scotch Whisky in town, and every stitch of plaid clothing … ever. Now you’re on your way to giving the craggy country “North of the border” its proper due. Yes, Guy-Who’s-Seen-Trainspotting-Twenty-Four-Times, I’m talking to you.

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The public power initiative: let’s roll

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

Coming home after almost two weeks in Sweden with the annual World Association of Newspapers (WAN) assembly and study tour, I was struck once again how nothing seems to change in San Francisco when it comes to the PG&E/Raker Act scandal.

PG&E was still firmly in control of the city’s energy policy in the mayor’s office. Mayor Gavin “The Green Knight” Newsom had capitulated spectacularly to PG&E and had reversed his policy of supporting a plan by his PUC that would have given the city control over some local power generation at the Mirant power plant (the peaker proposal.) The mayor had met secretly with PG&E executives and stiffed representatives from the Potrero Hill neighborhood and the environmental, environmental justice, public power, and community choice aggregation (CCA) movements.

The Hearst-owned Chronicle continued its long corporate tradition of blacking out the real story of the accelerating PG&E/Raker Act scandal. The utility was beautifully executing its divide and conquer strategy it has honed ever since the days that John Muir and the Sierra Club fought in vain to stop the damming of Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park for the city’s public water and power supply. (In that battle at that time, the Guardian would have stood with Muir.)

Amanda Witherell laid out the latest sorry episode in her story in Wednesday’s Guardian. Her lead: “Green City Mayor Gavin Newsom finally outlined what he calls a ‘more promising way forward than the current proposal’ of building two publicly owned power plants in San Francisco. The way forward: retrofit three existing diesel turbines at the Mirant Potrero Power Plant, while simultaneously shutting down Mirant’s most polluting smokestack, Unit 2.”

Our editorial laid out the political context: “The politics of the deal are complicated, but the driving force is clear: PG&E didn’t want the city moving even a small step toward public power, and as usual, the big utility is getting its way…PG&E has been trying for months to derail the peakers–not, of course, out of any concern for the environment, but because the city would own the power plants. At first Newsom stuck by his SPUC but when seven PG&E lobbyists came into his office and gave him the facts of life (see ‘PG&E offers Newsom a blank check‘), he backed down.

“And now, after meeting with the CEOs of PG&E and Mirant, Newsom is pushing the worst possible alternative: he wants to retrofit the Mirant plant and let the private company operate its own peakers. Same fossil fuel plants in the Bayview. Same type of air pollution. And the facility would be owned by a private company.”

Repeating for emphasis: When PG&E spits, City Hall swims. When PG&E spits, the mayor swims.

And so PG&E and Newsom have set the stage for the next phase in this great battle to kick PG&E out of City Hall, enforce the federal Raker Act mandating public power for San Francisco, and bring our own cheap, clean Hetch Hetchy public power to the residents and businesses of San Francisco.

The next stage is the emerging new public power initiative that Supervisors Ross Mirkarimi and Aaron Peskin are working on, with a wide swath of neighborhood and public power forces, aimed for the November ballot as a charter amendment.

This would be the third go at taking on PG&E head-on on the November ballot. This time it has a good chance of succeeding since PG&E and Newsom have gone out of their way to make the case for public power in 96 point Tempo Bold for all to see and savor. The measure will also be helped by massive turnout with Obama, seven supervisorial races, a clutch of solid progressive measures, and a smart, aggressive Obama like grassroots organizing campaign.

Let’s roll. B3, who wonders when he will no longer see the fumes from the Mirant plant from his office window at 135 Mississippi Street at the bottom of Potrero Hill

Click here to read this week’s article, Newsom’s power play.

Click here for this week’s editorial, A vote for public power in November.

Facing the music

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

Mini video-enhanced chamber operas seem to be the flavor of the month, at least in a certain stretch of the Mission District. Only three weeks ago, Bay Area composer Erling Wold’s solo opera Mordake began its world premiere run at Shotwell Studios (as part of the San Francisco International Arts Festival) with inimitable tenor John Duykers in the part of the titular medical mystery and suicide — a pampered Victorian gentleman with the seemingly sentient face of his sisterly "evil twin" pasted to the back of his head. Beautifully constructed throughout (beginning with Wold’s prerecorded but generally enthralling minimalist score and Dukyers’ expansively human turn as "the man who ate his family"), Mordake availed itself of an exquisite and all-encompassing video design that cunningly developed the opera’s themes while allowing traditional lighting, costumes, and sets to be kept to a select minimum.

Meanwhile, a few blocks away at the Lab on 16th Street, composer-librettist Lisa Scola Prosek’s Trap Door followed suit with a one-hour chamber work on the plight of a US soldier in Iraq accused of killing an unarmed civilian. Billed as a "video opera," Trap Door is in fact performed live by a cast of seven and another six musicians (including composer Prosek at the piano) but unfolds against a wall-projection (designed by filmmaker-videographer Jacob Kalousek) whose purpose is to open up and to some degree comment on action otherwise constrained by a physically tight, nontraditional stage with minimal scenic components.

Like Wold, Prosek is a gifted local composer happy to work at or near the Bay Area’s new-theater fringes, and is well versed in its multimedia possibilities. Her last chamber opera, Belfagor, based on Machiavelli’s satirical comedy and set to an Italian libretto, also incorporated an elaborate video-based design scheme as part of its impressive debut at the Thick House. But the results in Trap Door prove far less successful this time around.

Only part of the problem has to do with the multimedia dimension: missing Kalousek’s synched video contains some arresting images and evocatively incongruous backdrops (such as the negative image of a revolving Ferris wheel overlapping one particularly dramatic scene), but others feel either less inspired or arbitrary, simultaneously being difficult to read or fully take in against the multiple surfaces at the back of the stage.

Beyond these individual elements, it’s the underlying theme that proves problematic. Based on a dream of the composer’s, Trap Door uses music as both vehicle and metaphor for exploring the moral agency of a hapless soldier, Private Able (Clifton Romig), who is presented with an impossible situation in which his simple human wants and patriotic dreams run up hard against the chaos, hypocrisy, corporate double-dealing, and native outrage that dwell at the bloody forefront of American empire. As promising as that may sound, it seems to have been too complex an idea to adequately develop here, at least not without falling back on overly compressed musical motifs and a kind of stiff dramatic shorthand that skirts mere caricature.

Director Jim Cave’s solid staging ensures that the many swift scene changes come over gracefully. But the condensed action means that even the main character and his Iraqi counterpart — the taxi driver Omar (tenor Mark Hernandez) — have little dramatic depth, while characters like Jane the Journalist (soprano Bianca Showalter) can only come across as cartoons. The more choice aspects remain, unsurprisingly, the musical ones. Romig’s smooth, rich bass meshes nicely with a set of agreeable voices, including several fairly strong duets with sopranos Maria Mikheyenko and Eliza O’Malley. But in general, even the music feels too cramped and underdeveloped, like a series of tantalizing abstracts for some larger vision.

TRAP DOOR

Thurs/12–Sat/14, 8 p.m., $15–$20 sliding scale

Lab

2948 16th St., SF

(415) 864-8855, www.thelab.org

Mo’ Jello

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER What do you give a 50-year-old punk icon who has everything? A silver-studded dog collar? A reason to believe — or rebel? Peace of mind?

"Boy, I can’t think of much," Jello Biafra, né Eric Boucher, says with a chuckle at the question of what to gift him for his 50th birthday June 17. "I’m already such a pack rat, the last thing I need is more stuff. The main vice is vinyl, but I archive a lot of stuff. I’m a librarian’s kid."

Instead, the ex–Dead Kennedys vocalist, in characteristically against-the-grain fashion, will gift celebrants at his birthday-bash-to-end-all-bashes, the two-day "Biafra Five-O" at Great American Music Hall, with turns alongside the Melvins and a newly assembled band, the Axis of Merry Evildoers, which includes Victims Family’s Ralph Spight on guitar, Faith No More’s Billy Gould on bass, and Sharkbait’s Jon Weiss on drums. Oh yeah, and each punk-rock fire-/party-starter will receive a poster, or if it arrives in time, a 7-inch of Biafra and members of Zen Guerilla covering Rev. Horton Heat’s "Speed Demon" and Frankie Laine’s "Jezebel."

So what gives with the very public celebration of three decades of punky monkey-wrenching? "I saw the Stooges on Iggy’s 60th last year, and that was a great show," Biafra tells me while snacking in his San Francisco digs. "I got carried away with the moment and promised myself, if he’s that good at 60, I better be a tenth as good at 50 and get something together."

Expect Biafra’s new group to be part of a continuum: one that began with Dead Kennedys and has manifested in collaborations with the Melvins, DOA, No Means No, Al Jourgensen, Mojo Nixon, and others. "The hope is you’re still going to get a pretty sharp set of teeth," he promises. And speaking of DK, the man who would be SF’s mayor ("It was done as a prank") — and who was nominated as the Green Party’s 2000 presidential bid, right on the coattails of Ralph Nader ("It kind of got dumped in my lap") — is also recognizing the 30th anniversary of the Dead Kennedys, which played its first show in July 1978 opening for the Offs, DV-8, and Negative Trend, despite an extremely acrimonious lawsuit between the vocalist and his bandmates that led a jury to award control of the catalog to the rest of the group.

Despite intimations of a reunion on the part of the remaining Dead Kennedys, the bitterness of the conflict still rankles, with Biafra confessing with a wry chuckle, "I’ve had battles with suicidal depression — especially after that ugly Dead Kennedys lawsuit." Further, he says, "I really resent all the times they played these so-called reunion shows advertised as reunions, and there’s my picture in the ad. I think we have a new genre of punk, and it’s called fraudcore!"

Nonetheless, he hasn’t completely ruled out a reconciliation: "Sure, if those guys were ever willing to undo every last bit of damage they’ve done, I’d consider going back on stage with them. But so far they’ve been way too greedy and way too cowardly to even consider it."

So leave it to the Melvins to convince Biafra to tackle a few DK songs in honor of his birthday. The once SF-based band — in a near-original lineup including Mike Dillard — also will attack early hardcore tunes culled from a 1984 demo sent to Biafra. It turns out those pack-rat tendencies, coupled with Biafra’s abiding love of music, led him to hold onto that ancient tape, which the Melvins lost long ago. "It’s a good thing I saved these things," Biafra says. "They’d forgotten those songs existed." *

BIAFRA FIVE-O

With Jello Biafra and the Melvins, Biafra and the Axis of Merry Evildoers, the Melvins, and (Mon/16) Drunk Injuns and Los Olvidados, and (Tues/17) Triclops! and Akimbo

Mon/16–Tues/17, 8 p.m., $22-$40

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

www.gamh.com

COUNTRY TEASIN’ WITH NEIL HAMBURGER

Moanin’ and groanin’ has never been so hammily hilarious. Comedian Neil Hamburger has a brand new hat — namely, a sorry-ass Stetson — to go along with his new bag: the recently released Neil Hamburger Sings Country Winners (Drag City). Teaming with longtime Bay Area–ite Dave Gleason on guitar, Amoeba Music co-honcho Joe Goldmark on pedal steel, and Todd Rundgren cohort Prairie Prince on drums, Hamburger, a.k.a. onetime Bay stalwart Gregg Turkington, plans to stir misery-loving odes to classic backwoods grimness ("Please Ask That Clown to Stop Crying") into his archetypal miasma of whining/joke-telling during his present tour. So why turn to C&W, which currently seems to consist of "songs about shopping," rather than tears, beer, and chicken dinners? "A lot of rock ‘n’ roll is just people screaming," groans Hamburger from Los Angeles, far from the SF storage locker he claims to have once dwelt in. "You hear enough of that in San Francisco on the streets. With those big, bushy beards and screaming — what’s the difference between a contingent of homeless guys carrying signs and the Doobie Brothers?"

June 11, 9 p.m., $13–<\d>$15. Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell, SF. (415) 885-0750, www.gamh.com

IT’S TIME FOR TIMES NEW VIKING

They may be pegged as part of the so-called shitgaze underground — thanks to their pals in Psychedelic Horseshit who coined the term — but Columbus, Ohio, trio Times New Viking are as grounded as a trio of Midwestern ex-art-schoolers can be. Keyboardist Beth Murphy met guitarist Jared Phillips and drummer Adam Elliott while attending Columbus College of Art and Design, and the three found that their education came in handy when it came to playing together nicely — and noisily, particularly on their new Matador album, Rip It Off. "When you’re in art school you’re always forced to critique your work and think about everything you’re doing," Murphy, 26, explains from her hometown. "That got, like, really annoying to have to validate every mark you made. But now I think it’s kind of like ingrained in us, so we can’t help but think about every aspect of what we do." Their creative approach to music-making? "One of the first rules we set up was 300 percent creative control," she says. "We all have 100 percent say in everything, and we don’t ever tell each other what to do."

With Hank IV, Psychedelic Horseshit, and Fabulous Diamonds. Fri/13, 9 p.m., $12. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. www.bottomofthehill.com

Knock three times

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› andrea@altsexcolumn.com

Dear Andrea:

I am a happily married man (16 years). My wife and I’s lives are pretty good. But I have a recurring fantasy about swapping with a couple who are our friends. We flirt and play around (no touching) but we have skinny-dipped, flashed our parts, etc. What I can’t figure out is why I want to do more. Thinking about it turns me on a lot. I have spoken to my wife about it in a general way — but never mentioned it to our friends — and she typically just laughs. What do you think?

Love,

Hopeful

Dear Full:

I think you have to go back and change, "My wife and I’s sex lives are pretty good" to "My wife and I have a pretty good sex life." Unless you:

A) want people to think you and your wife have two completely separate sex lives and

B) want people to think you’re a moron.

If no one else is going to take a stand against pronoun abuse, then by golly, it’s going to have to be me. I. Me.

Grammar aside, I don’t see what’s so terribly confusing about this situation. I assume all of you are semi-youngish, still cuteish and hornyish, and often quite drunkish, or at least that’s the picture I’m getting. There’s nothing wrong with being any of those things, of course. I do not judge! It turns you on because other naked cuteish drunkish bodies are meant to turn you on, and because while many men in particular (although this is not in any way limited to either the young or the male) may find themselves satisfied day-to-day with who and what they’ve got at home, they would jump at the chance for some free (that is, wife-approved) alternative nookie. Nobody will be shocked to hear this, I assume? Some fidelity, granted, is fueled by honest-to-God "I only have eyes for you"-ness. But another substantial chunk is inspired by the "I’d like to, but she’d kill me" sentiment. Swapping, presumably, removes imminent murder from the equation, hence its appeal — at least in theory.

Since you used the word "swap," I’m assuming that the lure here is the other wife. Of course it is possible that you, Mr. "My wife and I’s," do not so much value precision in language and really meant "all get together in a great heaving heap of miscellaneous body parts," in which case it’s even less surprising. Nothing like a nice old-fashioned orgy to get those unnamed, unconfessed itches scratched before pretending they never itched in the first place. But whatev. It doesn’t matter why you want to do this: you want to, that’s all. Too bad you’re not going to get to.

What? How do I know? Because, silly rabbit, you have asked your wife (and more than thrice, I suspect), and she just laughed. If she was interested and had been waiting for you to bring it up, she would have laughed, yes! and then gone on to say: "We should ask them (giggle)! I mean, just for a joke! And see what they say, you know, just for laughs (giggle)." She would have said that, and she didn’t. And now you have to drop it. You get three tries with most things like this. After that, it turns into pestering or, depending on the dynamic in a given household (no aspersions cast), bullying. There are always exceptions. It is acceptable, for instance, to mention more than three times that you think your partner ought to be getting more of the oral sex. Even that would wear thin pretty quickly, though, if not actually accompanied by more of the aforementioned oral sex.

When it comes to more controversial acts, though, like wife-swapping or bondage or anal play, I think most people say no when they seriously mean no. By the second offer, most people who might be a little — or even a lot — interested but don’t feel comfortable copping to that yet will whisper, "Let me think about it, OK?" And you have to back off and let them. By the third time, they should be ready to say yes or no. What’s to be gained by a fourth try, or a fifth?

There are, of course, subjects that can only be brought up once and then they must be banished forever. If you want to raise one of those, you have to bring it up the right way, which goes like this:

"Honey, come watch this video with me."

"What’s it about?"

"Um, pooping on people."

If you receive a resounding "EEEEEEEEEW! NO!", you will know to drop it. If you don’t drop it, there is no help for you. Compared with pooping on people, your fantasy is pretty tame. But you still only get three tries and then it’s back to the "flirting and flashing" for you. Be glad you’ve got that.

Love,

Andrea

Andrea is home with the kids and going stir-crazy. Write her a letter! Ask her a question! Send her your tedious e-mail forwards! On second thought, don’t do that. Just ask her a question.

Andrea is also teaching two classes: "You’ve Really Got Your Hands Full" — a realistic look at having twins — at Birthways in Berkeley, and "Is There Sex After Motherhood?" at Day One Center in San Francisco and other venues.

Genetically modified mouthpieces

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OPINION In 2003, when I was working as an anchor for a San Francisco television station, newscasters and reporters across the country were asked by the White House to refer to the Iraqi invasion as Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). We were asked to call the war in Afghanistan Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF).

With press releases in hand, journalists repeated genetically modified words as if their DNA depended upon it.

Genetically modified language is when propaganda wins, journalism sells out, and the public loses. It’s when words are twisted and massaged and spun until an entire suit of lies is woven to cover the guilty and cloak the truth.

The genetically modified language, in the case of Iraq, was full of false bravado and moral superiority, wielded in attempts to turn lies into honorable causes our dear children were willing to go to war for.

Nothing caught on like the phrase "the war on terror." It was a White House propaganda bonanza. Whole networks built their news around swirling "war on terror" graphics and anchors began stories with "Today in the war on terror," while most of the world considered Americans the terrorists.

That’s when I pulled up lame and refused to dance the destructive dance. Most of us who complained are now gone.

The fourth estate, as the media is called, was created to watch the government and anyone else using lies to gain power and profit at the expense of the safety and security of the American people

Thinking journalists can now see that using the White House’s genetically modified language with unquestioning devotion is one of the many reasons why we lost the public trust five years ago.

I propose that journalists stop repeating genetically modified White House language, and go a step further.

On the very day it was leaked that Scott McClellan’s book reveals the country went to war based on known lies, the sweetest, shiniest, dimple-faced, airbrushed Bay Area Murdoch girl began a broadcast by announcing: "Another American has given his life for his country today."

I was once that girl. Today I know that soldier was one of thousands who bravely believed in what the president said — and died believing a lie the press helped promote.

What if this anchorwoman — and hundreds of others like her, all of whom I imagine to be nice people — read instead: "Another American has died in Iraq today. He was a beloved brother and child, and he was number 4,084."

Then perhaps follow that with the number of wounded Iraqi veterans: 30,329.

In an attempt at truly unbiased journalism, they could end with the number of Iraqis who have lost their lives: 1,217,892.

If this war, as McClellan says and dozens of other experts have pointed out, was based on a great lie, let’s honor those soldiers who were willing to believe the lie by bringing them home alive. Let’s stop repeating genetically modified words that glorify a conflict American journalists could have helped prevent by putting their pom-poms down.

Leslie Griffith

Leslie Griffith is a writer, award-winning television reporter and former KTVU news anchor. You can find more of her work at lesliegriffith.org.

SF Weekly seeks to delay payment

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The chain that owns SF Weekly, which last year had revenue of at least $159 million and more than $11 million in profit, argued in court June 5 that it’s having trouble raising money for an appeal bond to cover the $15.6 million judgment the Guardian won in its predatory pricing lawsuit.

SF Weekly attorney Rod Kerr asked Judge Marla Miller June 5 to stay the judgment until 10 days after she rules on post-trial motions. That could have delayed the judgment until July 28.

Village Voice Media, which owns the Weekly, needs to post a bond for the full amount of the verdict plus interest — now accruing at more than $4,000 a day — if the chain wants to avoid paying the Guardian during the appeals process.

Kerr argued that turmoil in the financial markets and the need for VVM to get approval from its lenders is making it difficult to secure the bond. "Without the post-trial decisions, they’re not willing to release the collateral," he said in court.

Kerr said he believes there is a likelihood the judgment amount will be substantially lowered during post-trial rulings, something the company has represented to its lenders.

Guardian attorney Ralph Alldredge, speaking to the court by telephone while his co-counsels Richard Hill and Craig Moody were present, reiterated a previous offer to stay enforcement until June 18, which is 30 days after the judgment was entered following the March jury verdict.

But Alldredge said the statements and briefs by the defendants raise serious concerns about whether they’re prepared to cover the full judgment, so the Guardian needs to be able to take steps to ensure that assets are being identified and secured to satisfy the judgment.

"They anticipate post-trial motions will result in a reduction of the verdict, so apparently their lenders have been told that," Alldredge said, adding, "The lenders need to be told the judgment is likely to be the final amount."

Judge Miller agreed with the Guardian position, granting the stay only until June 18, but allowing the defendants to return to court to ask for more time if they can provide evidence showing how it will result in a bond being issued.

"I am concerned there is a risk that the bond may never be issued," Miller said.

A San Francisco jury found that SF Weekly has been engaged in illegal predatory pricing going back to the mid-1990s, selling advertising below the costs needed to support the paper in an effort to drive the Guardian out of business.

Kerr also sought to delay enforcement of an injunction Miller issued that bars further below-cost pricing by SF Weekly, but that portion of the motion was denied.

Both sides are due in court July 8 at 9 a.m. to argue post-trial motions, including one by the defendants to throw out the verdict and order a new trial. (Steven T. Jones)

For more details and key documents, go to sfbg.com/lawsuit

Editor’s Notes

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› tredmond@sfbg.com

Mark Leno took a huge political gamble this spring, and if he had lost, he would have lost big.

It was hard enough challenging an incumbent state Senator in a Democratic primary (and pissing off a long list of people, some of them powerful and all of them with long memories). But when it became clear that Joe Nation — a centrist (at best) Democrat from Marin — was joining the race, Leno was facing a dramatic challenge.

Imagine if Nation had won. Imagine if a progressive (if sometimes ethically challenged) lesbian from San Francisco had been tossed out of office and replaced with a straight white guy who was pals with the landlords and the insurance industry. The rap on Leno would have been vicious: he would have been the one blamed for losing a San Francisco seat, a queer seat, a progressive seat … it’s not fair, of course, since Carole Migden was the one who made herself vulnerable, but politics often isn’t fair.

And this would have been ugly. I was wincing to think about the comments the next day. Leno’s political career would have been toast. And this is a guy who loves politics, loves holding office. Talk about going all-in.

But Leno pulled it off, putting together a coalition of progressives and moderates and winning convincingly. And his job is only beginning.

Leno has to mend a lot of fences. A lot of people still don’t think he should have taken on Migden, and some of her supporters are going to be bitter for quite a while. Many think his victory empowered the wrong side of the Democratic party: the Gavin Newsom wing, the squishy center. A lot of people (including me) wonder how Leno will come down on the key contested supervisorial races this fall, when Newsom’s forces and the progressives will be fighting — literally — for the future of San Francisco.

If Migden had won, there would be no doubt about the future alignments: people who were with her would be in the game, and people who opposed her would be punished. That’s how she operated, for better and for worse. Leno is different; he’s willing to work with people who opposed him and try to build bridges. He tells us he’s not always going to be with Newsom on local issues and endorsements — and if that’s true, and if he keeps in mind that he needed the progressives to win (and that Newsom’s buddies at Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and the big landlords groups did their best to bump him off) — we may see some fascinating new political coalitions emerging. (We may also see more issues like Propositions G and F, in which Newsom, Leno, and the entire power structure supported the Lennar Corporation’s land grab.)

But first, there’s the Democratic County Central Committee.

The DCCC controls the local party, and the party’s money, and the party’s endorsements, all of which will be critical this fall. The progressive slate organized by Sups. Aaron Peskin and Chris Daly did very well, and now could control the committee.

But Scott Wiener, part of the more moderate wing, is still the party chair. Wiener’s a decent and fair guy, but he likes Plan C (a group that has horrible pro-downtown politics). Someone’s going to run against him. Then we’ll see what side everyone’s on.

Read the Potrero Boosters letter to Newsom opposing the Mirant retrofit (PDF)

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